Knight Commission calls for widespread reform of NCAA

Updated May 7, 2018 at 9:53 PM;Posted May 7, 2018 at 3:53 PM

In the wake of a bribery scandal in college basketball, the Knight Commission is calling for the NCAA to adopt more stringent approvals, terms of conditions, and financial disclosures for income that NCAA institutions and their employees -- particularly coaches -- receive from shoe, equipment, and apparel companies.(The Associated Press)

The Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics has called for dramatically stepped up disclosures about the financial relationship between the nation's universities and the athletic footwear and apparel industry.

The panel's recommendations, issued Monday amid an ongoing corruption investigation in college basketball, went further than the NCAA's own basketball reform committee. The Knight Commission wants to ban coaches from cutting individual deals with shoe and apparel companies that obligate athletes to wear branded apparel on the field of play. Only university presidents should be empowered to make such deals, it said.

"This is a leadership opportunity for those who are making money from their affiliation with college sports to do the right thing," said Amy Perko, chief executive officer of the Knight Commission. "If we really believe in the value of what we're doing, there's no reason to hide where the money is coming from and where it's going."

The Knight Commission was formed in 1989 by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to promote the "educational mission of college sports." The NCAA has adopted several of its recommendations, including a rule that requires teams to ensure at least half their players are on track to graduate to be eligible for postseason play.

The recommendations come nearly eight months after a pay-to-play scandal stunned the amateur basketball world. Federal prosecutors filed criminal charges against 10 coaches, agents and sneaker company officials, including two men employed by Portland-based Adidas North America. The latter are accused of conspiring to pay collegiate players or their families in return for attending Adidas-aligned schools.

The Knight Commission's recommendations were wide-ranging. It called for a restructuring of the NCAA itself to include more independent directors on its board. "It's an open question if the NCAA can restore public confidence in its ability to be stewards of big-money college sports," said Arne Duncan, a Knight Commission co-chair and former U.S. secretary of education. "To do so, it will need to embrace far more sweeping and deep-seated reform than ever before."

On the transparency front, the commission also recommended that "significant infractions penalties" be imposed against universities that fail to adequately disclose coaches' outside income. This rule should apply to private and public schools alike, the Knight Commission recommended. Currently, some of the wealthiest, most successful basketball programs in the country are at private schools -- think Duke and Gonzaga -- which disclose little if anything about their sneaker sponsorships. Both are Nike schools.

Even before the criminal case, the vagaries of collegiate basketball sponsorships and reporting requirements were a matter of great import in Portland. The home base of Nike, Adidas North America and a key office of Under Armour, the city has emerged as a world hub of basketball sports marketing.

The Oregonian/Oregonlive published a series of articles this spring on the industry's influential role in youth and college basketball. As the Oregonian reported, just two years ago, the NCAA quietly discarded rules that identified how much outside money flowed directly to college coaches. At the same time, the big sneaker companies began sinking unprecedented sums into college sports, inking deals with universities in excess of $100 million, including one for $280 million.

Universities commonly earmark generous shares of the sponsorship booty for top football and basketball coaches as indirect, often undisclosed payments. The Knight Commission recommended universities be required to disclose those earmarked payments to coaches.

Both the Knight and NCAA commissions focused attention on so-called non-scholastic basketball -- the private youth teams of high-school-age teens. The NCAA commission report recommended new financial requirements for non-scholastic basketball events attended by NCAA coaches, and called on shoe and apparel companies to "implement financial transparency and accountability with respect to their own investments in non-scholastic basketball."

As The Oregonian/OregonLive reported, Nike, Adidas and Under Armour have become the largest and most influential financial backers of non-scholastic basketball. The companies run their own leagues of elite youth basketball clubs and compete for the top high-school-age talent.

Perko said the NCAA commission's recommendations would force stricter financial reporting requirements on organizers of basketball tournaments for teenagers than for universities that run the biggest, most successful college programs in the country.

Perko added that she's hopeful that NCAA will adopt the tougher disclosure standards suggested by the Knight commission as early as August.